THE CITIZEN
Who, or what, is a Robert Sebastian Cheong, you say?
The What is easy. He is a government scholar. His snazzy education at Oxford paid for by Singapore Press Holdings, to be used in service of the media, the thought machine apparatus of the elite, to keep us in our place. Whatever liberal attitudes and beliefs he learnt of in his Western education, to be used as weapons against the clueless and well-meaning heartlander.
His game plan isn’t the Greater Good, nor Freedom, nor Self-Actualization. It’s winning. Preferably at your expense. And oh, he is sneaky. He is no straight-forward debating champion. He has long since evolved from such childish tactics. No, Robert Sebastian Cheong will flatter you. He will agree with you. He will even help you to achieve your goals. And then before you know it you’ve been passed over for a promotion. A shrug from your manager, mumbling some bullshit about budgets and performance, is all that’s left for you to grasp onto. The noxious jetstream of the “high flyer”.
But the girls love him. They love his English middle name. His accent -- stripped of all ethnicity and molded to that of the ruling class that sleeps and wanks within the paperboard confines of Parliament house. They love how he is a home-owner at the age of 28, luxuriating in a condominium off Bukit Timah Road, doing his own laundry, paying his own bills, walking his own dog and cooking his own food -- “I cook a mean curry”, he would say to swooning Aunties and Xiao Mei Meis, all hankering to be invited over for a dinner party of “Traditional English food”. They love his tailored shirts, his initials RSC stitched onto the cufflinks, his taut ass and defined chest pushing out from a 1.8m tall frame. Some days, he comes in with a 5 o’clock shadow -- an affirmation of his masculinity, an indication of an easy-going drama-free nature, and clear evidence of a busy night fucking.
“Call me Rob”, he told me on his first day of work, shaking my hand like how one shakes a cup of bubble tea.
He represents everything I rejected all those years ago. When I willed myself onto the path of true freedom and renounced the trappings of the nanny state. The women orbit around him, and I sit here in unkempt shirt and bad hair, punished for my convictions. Even the Pantry Auntie hates me -- constantly castigating me for being left-handed by citing its impracticality and calling into question the effectiveness of my parents.
My parents did fail. But not by forcing me to be right-handed. I wear my left-handedness as a badge of honour.
I once tried to argue with the Pantry Auntie about this. She started to yell at me and threatened to quit, telling everyone that I was victimizing her and that she isn’t paid $3.50 an hour to be insulted by this “fake gwei lo”. So the advance party of office girls gathered round to calm her, serving her tea and tissues to wipe away her tears and make-up. And of course, the apparently non-fake gwei lo Robert Sebastian Cheong swooped in at the end with a pandan cake, just in time for everyone including the Pantry Auntie to turn their attentions to him.
“What do you do on weekends?”
“What do your parents look like?”
“You look so much younger than 28!”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Why don’t you come out for dinner with us?”
And so on. Ultimately, it became a mini office party with everyone except for me. Thankfully forgotten, I moved away to get some work done.
